Quote

A system is a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. A system must have an aim. Without the aim, there is no system.

W. Edwards Deming

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W. Edwards Deming
Age: 93 †
Born: 1900
Born: October 18
Died: 1993
Died: December 20
Composer
Economist
Engineer
Industrial Engineer
Statistician
University Teacher
Sioux City
Iowa
William Edwards Deming
W.E. Deming
W. E. Deming
Trying
Network
Work
Improvement
Aim
Accomplish
System
Together
Without
Interdependent
Must
Components

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If you destroy the people of a company, you do not have much left.
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The aim should be to work on the method of management.
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Survival is optional. No one has to change.
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It is not enough that top management commit themselves for life to quality and productivity. They must know what it is that they are committed to - that is, what they must do. These obligations cannot be delegated. Support is not enough action is required.
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Any two people have different ideas of what is important.
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I am not reporting things about people. I am reporting things about practices.
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The problem is that most courses teach what is wrong.
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You should not ask questions without knowledge.
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Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity. Such exhortations only create adversarial relationships, as the bulk of the causes of low quality and low productivity belong to the system and thus lie beyond the power of the work force
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Quality is made in the board room. A worker can deliver lower quality, but she cannot deliver quality better than the system allow.
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Confusing common causes with special causes will only make things worse.
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Managers don't like giving appraisals, and employees don't like getting them. Perhaps they're not liked because both parties suspect what the evidence has proved for decades: Traditional performance appraisals don't work.
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Forces of Destruction: grades in school, merit system, incentive pay, business plans, quotas.
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Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.
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When asked what single event was most helpful in developing the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein replied, Figuring out how to think about the problem.
W. Edwards Deming
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People care more for themselves when they contribute to the system.
W. Edwards Deming
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The moral is that it is necssary to innovate, to predict the needs of the customers, and give him more. He that innovates and is lucky will take the market.
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Eighty percent of American managers cannot answer with any measure of confidence these seemingly simple questions: What is my job? What in it really counts? How well am I doing?
W. Edwards Deming
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It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone. . . . The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.
W. Edwards Deming
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Choice of aim is clearly a matter of clarification of values, especially on the choice between possible options.
W. Edwards Deming